Jennifer Grey on ‘Dirty Dancing’ Sequel: It Has to Be ‘Empowering’
Jennifer Grey ran to the arms of Patrick Swayze and straight into cinema history with Dirty Dancing. But the story doesn’t end there. The Ferris Bueller’s Day Off actor is executive producing a reboot of the 80s classic. She wants the Dirty Dancing sequel to be, among other things, “empowering.”
The actor starred as dancer Frances ‘Baby’ Houseman in ‘Dirty Dancing’
Dirty Dancing shocked audiences in 1987 because it tackled serious issues that weren’t often talked about. It was a coming-of-age tale that went a step further.
Grey starred as Houseman opposite Patrick Swayze’s Johnny Castle. Castle’s ex-girlfriend, professional dancer Penny (Cynthia Rhodes) experiences illness brought on by a medically unsafe illegal abortion. Therefore, Baby must learn to dance well enough to cover for her.
In a recent interview with Yahoo! Entertainment, Grey marveled that a movie ahead of its time could manage to still be relevant in the present day.
“We were dealing with abortion in the movie, because it was a time when people couldn’t have a legal, safe abortion,” she said, referencing the controversial new abortion ban in Texas. “The idea that we’re unfortunately dealing with this again now is bizarre.”
Jennifer Grey will executive produce the ‘Dirty Dancing’ sequel
Grey is set to executive produce Dirty Dancing 2 through Lionsgate. The movie has danced around franchise status for years (see what we did there?)
Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (2004) was something of a prequel — merely a similar storyline, biting off the fame of the beloved original. A TV movie of the same name was also introduced in 2017.
Grey’s rendition, though, will be unique. She’s pledging to be true to the spirit of the original. In the same vein, she wants to make it fresh and original.
“I’m really committed to getting it right and to doing right by the fans,” she told Yahoo! “I just feel an enormous responsibility to the place it holds in people’s hearts and what made it so special, and to do it without Patrick is just unthinkable. So it has to be enough of a departure, because I would never be part of something where we’re just rehashing and redoing the old one.”
Jennifer Grey added that themes of empowerment were especially important in the original film. Therefore, they will also be front and center in the Dirty Dancing sequel. The actor referenced Patrick Swayze’s iconic line, “nobody puts baby in a corner.”
“[The new film] has to have something fresh and it has to be about real stuff,” she said. “[It has to] empower you to realize that you’ll never find yourself back in that corner, or that if you do, you know how to get yourself out again. There’s always a corner to be put in or to allow someone to put you in. The question is, how many times can you just decide: ‘There’s that corner again. I’m going to get myself out.'”
Jennifer Grey says writing is a “deep experience”
Grey is also an author. Her new memoir, Out of the Corner, will come out next year.
“It’s a really deep experience to write your own story,” Grey told Yahoo! Entertainment. “I recommend it to everyone. There’s a facileness to the way people just decide they know who you are and what your story is. This idea that we are this fixed thing… we’re always a work in progress.”
Yahoo! reported that Grey’s memoir will address her long rumored on-set tension with the late Swayze, and details about her cosmetic surgeries.
Indeed, Grey continues her own “work in progress,” even within the parameters of the Dirty Dancing sequel.
